Monday, 19 August 2013

The second summer school course I did at City Lit, was one with Tanvi Kant. Another jeweller working in textiles. This two day course was a further opportunity to experience techniques and processes personal to another artist and to experiment with a series of samples and test pieces.

Again it was fascinating to hear Tanvi talk about her own work and experiences...especially those linked to her own culture and it's traditions/celebrations.

There was a lovely group of students on this course and the nature of the technique meant there was often a lot of chatter as we worked, a sewing bee, swapping stories and seeing what each other was working on.

I got the chance to do a couple of Summer School Courses at City Lit this summer. A Master Class with Nora Fok and another one with Tanvi Kant. It's always good to have some extra making time to learn further techniques, experiment with new materials and see how other artists work. Another big plus is meeting and working alongside students at city Lit. I met some great folk on the courses this summer.

Below are some examples of samples I made on the Nora Fok Masterclass. Working with nylon monofilament (aka fishing line). The most interesting part of this course for me was hearing Nora talk about her own work and the stories that influenced her pieces. Many were personal anecdotes of the small things in life(often humorous),that not everyone would notice...quiet observations that translated into big theatrical works.

Dying the nylon with chemical dyes was the perhaps the most exciting bit of the course for me. As I am a bit obsessed with "colour" and have hand dyed my own yarns for many pieces of work...to see how "instant" the dying process was for nylon was surprising. It has totally different properties to textile yarn...this was both disconcerting and liberating. I won't be switching to nylon in my own work any time soon, but am sure a few things from the experience will filter into my experiments!

I also enjoyed seeing the work that Nora had produced with 3D printing and how she was still able to use her low tech processes as a route to get to high tec designs.

I got a bit obsessed with a painted shed in Portree when I was on holiday (as you do). I ended up taking loads of photos and studying the details/rivets/peeling parts...my poor long suffering "artist's spouse" did utter at one point "Stop taking photos of rubbish". It was especially annoying for him this time as we were sharing the camera. So when we returned home we had to split it into: Nice landscape images, capturing fast running water and deep space shots...and then my images of rusty paintwork, yarns, heather and monsters of the sea.